What is the best kind of wood for carving?

3 basic wood carving questions?

• 1. what kind of woods are used in most wood carvings (by hand) and how do those woods compare to that of your average pine wood from a store? (are they harder? better in some way?) 2. how do the knives or blades used by wood carvers compare to that of a swiss army knife for wood cutting? are they sharper? better? (and to be more specific im using the victorinox mechanic swiss army knife.) 3. knowing that im using a 2 x 4 piece of pine wood to carve a bird fetish thingy and carving it with a swiss army knife am i doomed to fail or will it look like crap in the end? should i really invest in better materials? right now it looks like it will turn out fine, but before i get really close to the end i would like to know if i should switch tools. thank you.

• Answer:

  1. basswood, lime, tulip, poplar about the same as white pine but with much finer grain, thus smoother to carve. 2. If you have a proper stone (hard) for sharpening the Victorinox blades, you can get them sharp enough for wood carving, but it takes work because the pocket knife blades are hard and the edge angle of wood carving is different. carving blades are actually softer and of steel that takes a great edge but requires frequent resharpening. 3. If you have a fine grained block of wood, you should be able to carve a good result without major problems, but you should have practiced and made the detailed parts (heads, etc.) in scale to know you can.